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winifredsandersonsbitch · 5 years ago

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Everybody Needs a Hobby

Spike x Summers! Reader

Warnings: some colorful language, implied smut, S5 spoilers mentioned

Description: You’re frustrated with the crude reality of life in Sunnydale. You want something you can love that won’t go up in flames. One night, you pick up a poetry book from the library and Spike stops by to give you a vivid reading.

You need something to take you out of the violence of your everyday life.

You try painting. Relaxing watercolors aided by books you pick up at the library, bright acrylics splashed across canvases. Soon your room is filled with artwork that ranges from clumsy to talented. You start giving paintings away to make space. Birthday presents for your friends, surprises for elderly neighbors, just-because gifts for Spike to make his crypt more colorful (he laughs at them, hurts your feelings a little, but the next time you’re in his bed you see them peeking out from behind a curtain). It works, for awhile, but you crave something less solitary. Plus your artwork takes a darker turn when you wake up from nightmares, which is frequently.

You turn to yoga classes at the YMCA. Twisting your body into poses is a different kind of hell after a night out with Buffy, but the stretches take so much of your focus that they force you to stop overthinking. Then your instructor turns out to be a former genie with a sinister agenda and you have to drop the class. It was getting expensive anyway.

You join a intermural volleyball team, but after a gruesome loss one of your teammates takes up the dark arts. You start baking and almost burn the house down. Even community service gets dangerous when the blood bank is ambushed by vampires.

“I’m just so frustrated,” you explain to Dawn one morning at breakfast. “I mean, I love all of these things and I want them to work out, but Sunnydale poisons everything. It’s like I can’t even have a hobby on the Hellmouth.”

She peels a banana with manicured fingers. You dropped her and her friend off at the salon last week and now it’s like every motion has to be fit for a hand commercial. “Fighting vampires is a hobby.”

“No, it’s a full-time job,” Buffy says, swiping an apple off the counter. “And (Y/n) already has two of those.”

“Well, there you go.” Dawn shrugs on her backpack. “You don’t need a hobby.”

You do, though. Spike insists on supplementing your income with his, so you’ve cut down your hours at the office and you’re only taking weekends at the diner. For the first time in years, you have time to relax. You don’t want to waste it.

Buffy spots the sour look on your face and nudges your arm. She drops the core in the trash and washes her hands under the sink.

“Maybe it’s time to go back to school,” Buffy suggests. “I know it’s the middle of the semester, but you could apply for next year.”

You don’t want to make her feel bad, especially since she’s in the same situation as you, but school doesn’t feel urgent when you’ve got the apocalypse going on every other year. Plus you don’t even know what you’d major in. There’s no degree for monster fighting.

“Yeah, maybe.” You finish your yogurt, check the time on your watch. “Come on, Dawn, I’ll drive you to school.”

After you drop her off, you head into the office. It’s slow today. The coffee machine gurgles to life every thirty minutes to keep the employees awake and the copier sits silent in disuse. Barbara and Anne giggle together in the annex over a tin of buttered cookies. The phone rings at the reception desk only twice in the morning. When you answer, no one’s there.

You spend most of the day looking up courses that you might be interested in. There are a few that catch your eye, but you can’t fathom how you’d put them together into a degree.

One of them, creative writing, jumps out at you. You used to write when you were in your early teens. Mostly angstsy poetry about how no one understood you and how invisible you felt. It’s embarrassing to look back on now, but then it had felt like a statement to the world.

Writing made you feel known. You gave it up when you went to college, mostly because it seemed impossible that it would ever amount to anything and partly because you didn’t have the time or energy to focus on it. College seems silly now, all that effort for a paper degree when you know what’s really out there, but if you went back you wouldn’t be going just for the degree. You’d be going because you love to learn.

It’s not so important that you get published and famous anymore. You don’t need the spotlight when you’ve already got the most important job in the world: taking care of your sisters. It’s fine to work in the office and at the diner where you’re nothing more to people than another employee. You know you’re making a difference, even if they never will.

But your heart aches a little for what you might’ve had if life hadn’t gotten in the way.

That night, you stop by the library to pick up some books. Just to see if you still have a passion for them the way you used to. Sunnydale’s library is open until ten p.m. and you stay curled up in an armchair in the fiction section until close. You check out four books to take with you: a poetry anthology, Little Women, a collection of short stories from around the world, and a YA novel. You figure that if you try all different genres, maybe you’ll land on something you love.

Your walk back to the house is uneventful, thankfully (having just renewed your library card, you don’t want to have it revoked if something sinister takes a bite out of your books). You have a late night snack with Dawn since Buffy is still out hunting and then take your books up to your room.

You leave the window open so you won’t have to get up if Spike drops by and curl up in bed with the anthology, a notebook on your bedside table in case of inspiration. You’re not totally sure when he comes in; it feels like hours and seconds since you opened the book. The words are swirling around in the soft light of the room, bouncing off the bed frame and the dresser, colliding with your closet door and knocking the paintings askew in their frames.

“Shouldn’t leave your window open like that, love. Something wicked might find its way in.”

His shirt is off already, you register, as he peels the book from your fingers and kisses you deeply. You make a noise of protest against his mouth and he pulls back, eyebrows raised.

“What the hell book is that, to have you so absorbed you don’t even notice me come in?” He picks it up, dangles it in front of you. “Can’t be porn. Because, obviously, what you’ve got in front of you is better than porn. You Summers. All repressed and self-righteous. If it’s the bloody Bible or The Guide to Enlightenment or some—”

“Don’t make fun of me, William,” you retort, snatching it out of his grasp. “It’s a good book.”

“Must be,” he scoffs. Then he reads the cover. His features flicker through three different emotions in the span of five seconds. “Poetry?”

“Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not— Here, give me that.”

Grudgingly, you hand it over, and he settles in between your legs, his head resting on your breasts. He picks out the filthiest, most sexual poem he can find (which is still incredibly tame by his usual standards) and recites:

“‘I want a red dress. I want it flimsy and cheap, I want it too tight, I want to wear it until someone tears it off me. I want it sleeveless and backless, this dress, so no one has to guess what’s underneath. I want to walk down the street—’”

His voice is low, soft, like he’s switched into someone else in the moments between his choosing the poem and his reading it. It makes you shiver. His hand slides up your thigh, at odds with his careful, thoughtful voice.

“‘I want to walk like I’m the only woman on earth and I can have my pick. I want that red dress bad. I want it to confirm your worst fears about me—’” At this, he shifts position, moves the underwear beneath your pajama shorts aside and slides a finger up. You bite your lip. “‘—To show how little I care about you or anything except what I want.’ I like that one, what about you? ‘Confirm your worst fears?’ ‘How little I care about you or anything except what I want?’ Sound like someone you know?”

You hardly realize he’s switched from the poem to conversation until he pauses his ministrations beneath the bedsheet. He’s angled toward you now, one hand twisted under the sheets and his back against your inner thigh, a toothy grin on his face as he repays you for earlier.

“You’re such an ass.”

He ignores this instead of cutting in with his typical I’m evil, duh speech, nuzzles your neck. “I’d like to get you into a dress like that, love. Have you walk down the street in it, showing off—” He sucks at the skin, hard. You cry out. “But then we have to have a way of letting everyone know you’re mine, don’t we?”

“Spike.” His name comes out a moan, a quiet prayer.

“You want another poem? I’m liking this book.”

He returns to his regularly upright seated position, pretends to adjust his reading glasses, then flips through the pages, leaving you wanting. He lands on a sonnet, airing the words out to the open room as you squirm. Finally, you decide to take matters into your own hands, but he stops you, bursting into a new stanza.

“Here in the electric dusk your naked lover tips the glass high and the ice cubes fall against her teeth...”

He replaces your fingers with his own, guiding you through the poem with a small circles. When you beg, he undresses for you, sets the book down.

“You’re just an erotic hallucination,” he breathes, touching everything as if to make sure that the line isn’t true.

He’s teasing, but a part of him clings to these words in a sad, sweet way. When he’s finished and you’re spent, he rolls over onto the other side of the mattress and his mood shifts again.

“I loved a girl once,” he says, and it stings, even though he talked about Dru often when you first started up and even before, like he wished to hurt you into wanting him. “I wrote her this poem. I used to write a lot, before. I was hopeless that way.”

His voice isn’t soft now. It’s almost angry, like he has been during sex at some points. Passionate and raw and mad at someone that wasn’t you. Flickering back and forth between past and present.

“You probably would’ve liked William,” Spike says. He barks a strangled laugh. “He was just your type. A scrawny mama’s boy who lived through his books.”

He was almost gentle earlier. You can’t understand why he switches like this, between acting like he can’t go on without you and twisting the knife. You roll onto your side.

“Might’ve been, once,” you murmur. This pillow talk is almost worse than the nights when he leaves right after to get his fix, claiming you’ve made him hungry. “Boys like that wouldn’t look twice at me now.”

“Don’t beat yourself up, love.”

You can hear the smile in his voice though. He likes that your self-esteem is low. It feeds his ego, that he can hurt you even though he can’t drain you dry. He’s soulless, after all. On some level, he probably does need you like he says, but it’s not pure. It never will be. He can try to help you when it suits him, restrain himself from severing ties because he craves closeness, but he’s still Spike.

“They’re scared of me now.” Your arms cross under your breasts. You’re not self-flagellating tonight, not really. You’re in the mood for the truth. “They know.”

“Know what?”

“They know, on some level—” It sounds silly, only it isn’t, not to you. “—what I’ve done. And no amount of watercolors or yoga classes is going to change that.”

You didn’t realize it until you said it out loud, how much you were trying to be the girl you were before your mother’s death. How much you missed her and the almost casual slayage that was common before Glory. Sure, the world almost ended a couple times, but you knew how it would turn out in your heart. This— with Buffy, with Dawn— you have no idea.

You lapse into silence, purposefully even your breathing out so it seems you’ve fallen asleep. He gets up not long after, rustles around your room for a moment in a way that makes you nervous, and then pulls the window shut behind him as he exits onto the roof. You fall asleep at some point, drifting in and out of a dream featuring you at the office in a nightmare distortion of your boss’s birthday party until your alarm goes off.

You sit up and smack the button off, sending a piece of paper cascading to the floor. It isn’t until after you’ve brushed your teeth and fully woken up that you retrieve it. It takes you a full thirty seconds to process the first line of the pretentious and somewhat offensive poem Spike left you.

It’s disgusting. It’s explicit. It’s replete with words that you have to look up.

You love it.

When you go down to breakfast, Dawn cracks jokes about the dazed smile on your face until Buffy shushes her and sends her off to finish getting ready for school.

“Seriously, are you okay though?” she asks when the two of you are left to yourselves. You could ask her the same question, with the already scabbing gash on her forehead, but you settle for a quick shake of the head. You feel like you’re burning up, like she can see through you to all the things you did last night.

“No— I mean, I didn’t sleep well.” You pour yourself a cup of juice and take a seat at the table, trying to suffocate your grin. “But I think I found my new hobby.”

#fanfiction #spike x reader #spike #btvs season 5 #btvs #btvs x reader #buffy the vampire slayer

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fabricadeconhecimentos · 5 years ago

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countessgradula · 6 years ago

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So I’m late on a proper New Year’s post, but one of my things (I’m not doing resolutions this year, I’m doing “things I’d like to try”) is not guilting myself as much when the schedule for something non-urgent shifts around. I had family over, then I headed back to my apartment, and I’ve spent the last two days cleaning and organizing and then reading for class. Today is the first day of my Spring semester, so we’ll say this is a reflection post for that.

Anyway! I haven’t re-upped my intro post since I first started this blog. Under the cut, for scrolling flow purposes:

I think I’m going to stick with going by Countess for now, just because. Depending how this next semester goes, maybe I’ll use my initials later or something. My department is pretty small, and while I have a couple friends following me (hi!) it’s bc I felt comfortable with them doing so and directly gave them my url. So, doing this for a bit longer.

I’m a first year PhD student in English at a university in the Southern U.S.

I’m primarily a Gothicist, and have recently gotten more into writing about Southern Gothic, given where I’m from/where I’m going to school

On top of that, I research the current iteration of the Romance genre (which I’ve alternated between calling Contemporary Romance or Popular Romance, trying to avoid confusion with contemporary-set romance novels but also with the older connotations of capital-R Romance), but I haven’t gotten to explore that as much recently

I didn’t want to go into my full research questions here, both for the sake of space and preservation, but if anyone is ever curious, I’m always down to talk about them!

I’m the first person in my immediate family to go to grad school, and the first person in my entire family going for something Humanities-related, so that occasionally leads to some Interesting conversations with well-meaning relatives

I’m TAing again this semester and will be an instructor of record next semester, about which I oscillate from “yay!” to “yikes!” and back again on an alarmingly quick basis

In my solo downtime I watch a lot of movies, especially horror (one of my BAs is in film), play video games pretty casually, and write fiction for myself (my other BA was in creative writing).

Speaking of that, I actually applied for MFA programs my first application cycle, but had a change of heart and went the PhD route on my second. If anyone ever has any questions about that process, I’d be happy to chat.

I’m also working on cooking/baking more; mostly pastas and sweets for now, respectively, but I’m trying to expand my repertoire

On the off-chance this is helpful to anybody: I have some sort of anxiety - I haven’t been formally diagnosed, but I’ve lived with the physical symptoms long enough to know it’s definitely something of the sort. I also have shown similar tendencies in the past to OCD and ADHD, and while I can’t say for sure I have either, I’ve found tips to help cope with those have also helped me function in the day-to-day, so I try to pay particular attention to discussions about those in academia (which might, in turn, be reblogged here for my own reference).

Having discussed my Right Now, so to speak, I’d love to discuss my New Year.

A few things I’m proud of from 2018:

Briefly had a job in accounting and didn’t do terribly, which made me braver about some things I previously thought I would only ever be bad at (math, I’m talking about math.)

Actually got into grad school, finally

Relocated to a new city in a state where I’d never lived and had no family nearby, successfully

Passed my first semester (grades aren’t everything, but it’s a big deal to me)

Got accepted to my first conference (one being held on campus, but still)

Outside of academics, generally just survived what was personally a really rough year due to a perfect storm of bad circumstances

Some things I’d like to try in 2019:

Submitting an abstract to this really big conference I’m looking forward to and hopefully getting accepted

Making a point to correct my posture whenever I can - I’m a bisexual who can’t sit properly in chairs, but at least when I need to be presentable I’ll make the effort

Not talking down myself or my achievements - I have this habit of minimizing my contributions or my projects when I talk (“oh, no big deal” “I might be wrong, but”) and I need to put a stop to that, even if I’m trying to poke fun at myself. I did the work and I earned whatever I got, so while I don’t want to brag per se, I can at least stop selling myself short.

Make a point to put my phone down whenever I catch myself mindlessly scrolling or refreshing - honestly, you’d think I would have done this earlier with how annoyed I get with some of the things I read online (the fiction discourse here is less inviting than a lukewarm salad bar with no sneeze guard). I’m hoping to replace it with actually reading a few pages of a book for fun, since I don’t want to encroach on breaks with more work. Maybe I’ll actually get a whole novel read during my semester, who knows.

Finally, find more places in my new city to have fun and take more pictures - I’m normally pretty selfie-adverse, but I’d rather have bad photos than none at all.

And I think that’s a new place to leave it for now; if you read all this way, you’re a peach and I appreciate you.

Here’s hoping this is the year we finally go after everything we want, unapologetically.

#about me #first year gradblr #english gradblr #phdblr

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satireessayonsocialmedia639 · 4 years ago

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jeffreyrwelch · 7 years ago

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Dos and Don’ts to Remember When Getting Dog Tattoos

Dogs are absolutely the center of my world. They were the most consistent and joyful part of my life as I was a kid growing up in an abusive home. I’m heavily tattooed and I’ve chosen to memorialize my relationship with dogs through dog tattoos many times. I have paw prints for all the dogs who were part of my life as a kid/teenager in a band on my arm and I have portrait tattoos for the three dogs that I share my life with currently. I also have a dog agility course tattooed on the back of one of my legs with a quote about loss — I competed actively in dog sports as a teenager, but had to quit when I became homeless and lost my dogs.

Tattoos are how I document important experiences and relationships in my life, so, of course, I have dog tattoos!

Dos for dog tattoos:

Trust your artist when it comes to your dog-tattoo design. Photography ©PenelopeB | iStock / Getty Images Plus.

Be creative – think about a design that you want on your body forever, and that represents your dog’s personality and/or your relationship with him.

Find an experienced artist who does tattoos in a style that you like.

Give your artist lots of reference materials, photographs of your dog, and any other inspirational images you want your artist to incorporate into the tattoo.

Trust your artist when she makes suggestions about the design or size of the tattoo — she’s the expert.

Ask questions. Especially if this is your first tattoo, ask questions about anything that feels confusing.

Tip your tattoo artist! Twenty-percent is generally an average amount to tip your artist.

Don’ts for dog tattoos:

The author Sassafras Lowrey’s dog tattoos. As she says — don’t be afraid to go big with your dog tattoos. Photography courtesy Sassafras Lowrey.

Don’t be afraid to go big! Tiny tattoos don’t tend to age well.

Avoid getting cheap tattoos — sometimes you really get what you pay for. The cheapest tattoo might not be one you want on your body forever.

Try not to copy other people’s tattoos — work with your artist to design something new/unique that represents your dog or your relationship to your dog.

Don’t feel like you have to wait until your dog has passed to get a tattoo. Many people consider tattoos to be something to get as memorials, but you can absolutely get tattoos of your dogs while they are still alive!

Stories of Dogster Readers With Dog Tattoos:

1. Scott Lorenz Andresen

Scott Lorenz Andresen’s dog tattoo.

Tattoo of a painting of Scott’s late dog, Sprey.

2. Cari K.

Cari K’s dog tattoo. Photography courtesy Cari K.

“I got Keener shortly after my first dog died. We took a whole bunch of classes together. I knew I wanted to try nosework with him and we both loved it. That’s why I chose to have his nose in the tattoo. We’ve traveled a few thousand miles together for training, seminars and competitions. He opened me up to an awesome new world. We have met so many great people. I never in my life thought I would have it in me to travel ‘alone’ (wait, I guess it’s not alone when your dog is with you) out of state.”

3. Jack Jackson

Jack Jackson’s dog tattoo. Photography courtesy Jack Jackson.

“We’re in Toronto Ontario. I’m from the U.K., so she’s my only family here and she’s the absolute love of my life. She makes me so happy every single day.”

4. Rae

Rae’s dog tattoo. Photography courtesy Rae.

“This is a portrait of my Corgis (Machete Corgéz and Knives the Corgi) based off a painting my friend Amanda gave me for Christmas one year. [This tattoo was] done by Alex Dawes. [It’s] not a memorial tattoo — just a lot of things I love all in one.”

5. Christa Faust

Christa Faust’s dog tattoo. Photography courtesy Christa Faust.

“I live in Los Angeles. The tattoo is by Graham Chaffee. Butch was my heart dog, my little shadow and my constant traveling companion. I’m a crime writer and he attended several conferences with me, which is where he got the nickname Noir Dog. This tattoo is on my left calf, so that he will always walk by my side.”

6. Lisa Clark

Lisa Clark’s dog tattoo. Photography courtesy Lisa Clark.

“Although [it’s not a tattoo] of my dogs — it will happen, trust me, I have two dogs, I’ve had foster dogs and I volunteer at my local SPCA — I had this infinity symbol with paws done to represent my dogs, my fosters, and the many dogs I’ve loved and cared for in my lifetime that [have] offered me unconditional love and companionship. They are man and woman’s best friend.”

7. Jae

Jae’s dog tattoo. Photography courtesy Jae.

“I have a tattoo of my retired guide dog’s paw (to scale) with a purple Hamsa in the middle because his collar is/was purple. He guided on my left, and his eyes were my eyes and protected me from so many near-misses with cars, random cut-outs on sidewalks and finding my way home.”

Tell us: Do you have a dog tattoo? Please tell us about it in the comments!

Thumbnail: Photography ©zhobla91 | iStock / Getty Images Plus.

Sassafras Lowrey is an award-winning author whose novels have been honored by the Lambda Literary Foundation and the American Library Association. Sassafras is a Certified Trick Dog Instructor and assists with dog agility classes. She lives and writes in Brooklyn with her partner, a senior Chihuahua mix, a rescued Shepherd mix, a Newfoundland puppy, two bossy cats and a semi-feral kitten. Learn more at sassafraslowrey.com

Read more tips from Dogster.com:

Treat Your Dog to … Different Types of Dog Beds

7 Ways to Go Eco Friendly With Your Dog

Why Does Dog Pee Kill Plants? And What Can We Do About It?

The post Dos and Don’ts to Remember When Getting Dog Tattoos appeared first on Dogster.

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jamiekturner · 7 years ago

Text

The Making of a Unicorn

Three years ago I embarked on a journey to become a unicorn. A unicorn is a designer who also writes code.

I had always wanted to learn to code. I’d dabbled a little bit. But I didn’t know anything about web programming. I’ve also wanted to learn how to design on my computer.

My professional background was in product management. I’d worked with incredibly talented designers and developers. Then I went and got an MBA.

I was tired of having ideas and not being able to execute on them myself. I had that creative itch that I couldn’t quite scratch.

I’ve realized how many others out there who want to be makers but get lost along the way. There are so many tutorials out now on so many learning platforms teaching so many different frameworks.

And then there’s learning to be a designer…

I love learning and grew up in a household where education was the most important thing. Yet I was afraid of programming. It was scary and intimidating. As I grew up and became a professional manager of programmers and designers I felt like something was missing.

I would have an idea and then find others to pay to make it. This hurts your soul. Yes, money is a wonderful tool. But so is hard work. I want to challenge you to step outside of your comfort zone and learn how to make things!

I recommend learning HTML, CSS, Sass, and JavaScript today. If you want to make apps, I would then learn Swift or Java depending on whether you want to do iOS or Android.

Learning design is a nebulous process. My recommendation here is to focus on the principles of UX design. It will help with what you build while you do programming exercises. Additionally, learning interaction and visual design both take lots of practice and time. You have to develop a feel for it, which won’t happen quickly.

The key to remember is that you have to learn tools and processes. The tools will come and go, so the ones I suggest are good for getting started. The processes will take a long time to master, but they can be applied to any tools going forward.

The other thing to note is how you like to learn. I used a mix of books, online tutorials, online courses, and in-person courses. I was working for a startup remotely for a large chunk of this, then running my own startup. This gave me flexibility and access to mentors.

Things to learn:

Positive Attitude — have fun being bad and learning. You have to get into the mentality of play and making mistakes, especially when you can’t quite understand something.

Dev: HTML, CSS, JavaScript (jQuery, Underscore), Sass, bootstrap, github, sublime text, command line, Angular, React.

Design: Sketch, PhotoShop, inVision, Marvel, Framer.

Processes: Hosting, modular programming, object-oriented programming, chrome dev tool debugging, strategic design thinking, interviewing, surveys, personas, card sorting, information architecture, user flows, ui design, usability testing, wireframing, mocking up, prototyping, interaction designing, animating, color theory, typography, whew…that’s a lot. I’m sure there are more too. A lot of these you’ll learn while learning tools, but some take intentional focus.

The last piece I want to point out is that my philosophy towards learning has changed so so so much over the last three years. If the only useful thing you get from my post is this then I’m happy:

When learning development there are two fundamental pieces. One is memorization and the second is practice understanding and implementing concepts. While learning a new programming language the faster you memorize the vocabulary the stronger you get. It takes some work (and flash cards), but is incredibly useful. Then, in order to be able to actually use a new concept, you have to practice it in real code. Watching or reading won’t cut it if you don’t take the time to try it out.

When learning design there are two fundamental pieces. One is learning the tools and the second is raw practice based on inspiration. As you begin to master the tools you grow substantially faster and understand how to “see” designs you like. You’ll understand how they were put together and why. However, you must put in the hours creating and recreating designs. Learn a tool then find inspiration on the web. Recreate what inspires you. Your eye will improve and your ability to create what you see in your mind’s eye will mature.

Here’s the complete list of books, courses, and tutorials I found most helpful.

Below the list I’ll give an exact order that I would recommend going through them. Oh, the power of hindsight!

Books:

Don’t Make Me Think — the classic book on making things usable and a fantastic place to start learning about UX.

HTML/CSS Book — beautiful, simple, and effective.

Eloquent JavaScript — the best book to go from zero to hero in JS, oh and it’s free.

Elements of Typographic style — I can’t stress how important it is to learn typeography early in your journey.

Elements of user experience—Another classic, while I think some of the content is outdated, you’ll understand many of the concepts listed above by the time you finish.

Information Architecture — One of the few books I think of as invaluable for both devs and designers.

JavaScript Patterns — The most advanced book here, this will help you understand best practices and why other devs make certain decisions.

JavaScript the Good Parts — Another classic JS book, this deeper dive will get you using intermediate concepts.

TDD By Example — You will need to understand Test Driven Development both as a practice and as a conversation piece with other devs.

Progit — Part of becoming a developer is learning how to use git and this primer helped me immensely.

UX Pinfree books — UX Pin has SO many free books, I highly recommend reading one as you dig into new UX topics.

Courses:

Bloc UX — I have mixed feelings about the Bloc course. I wasn’t thrilled with the content of the lectures and I ended up referring to books or the Team Treehouse UX content a lot of the time. However, the projects section is great for cutting your teeth and having a mentor involved is useful for feedback. I did the program before any of my in-person training. The price, for an online program, is a bit steep.

RefactorU, full-stack JavaScript, in person 10 weeks — I had a fantastic experience at RU. I came in feeling confident in my html, css, and JS skills, and by the end of the 10 weeks I realized how much I still have to learn. I went through the program starting January 2015. I still don’t feel confident in Node/backend because I haven’t been using it, but my front-end skills went through the roof. I think an in-person experience is killer if you have the time both for networking and being in a structured environment.

General Assembly, UX, in person 10 weeks — I enjoyed the GA program a lot. I was told by the admittance team that my knowledge of UX was likely above much of the course materials and this was true. However, being at GA is a fantastic experience in San Francisco, both for networking and building a portfolio in a collaborative environment. One of the biggest challenges for me after all my learning was how to showcase it. With the guidance of my instructors I feel like I’m getting there. Also, working in a program focused on real projects is useful and fun.

Design + Code, in person, 1 weekend — I can’t stress how amazing Meng To is as an individual. The class is one day of Sketch and one day of XCode working on a real project. Part of what I found the most valuable was learning by doing. I still use the technique in the class for making drop shadows, and a lot of my Sketch workflow is based on Meng’s suggestions. I’ll also add that he is a walking encyclopedia of design resources and his newsletter is fantastic.

Tutorials:

The Bitfountain Design Immersive, iOS8 Sketch — This course helped me more than any other out there in learning Sketch. It’s intense, long, brutal, but so effective. Along the way you create a huge amount of assets and learn a lot of tips and tricks.

The new Bitfountain site, iOS dev & design — Bitfountain released a new site last year and has a wonderful community. I can’t plug these guys enough, they create content based on what users ask for and have a wonderful teaching style. I’ve worked through a lot of their Swift content and some of the new Sketch materials.

Codecademy — Spend a weekend with codecademy when you start to learn HTML/CSS, then another weekend when you want to learn JavaScript. Their method of learning by doing is effective for mastering the basics. When you go on to more advanced tutorials you’ll begin to understand how things work better, but you’ll have a solid foundation.

Dash — This was my introduction to General Assembly a couple of years ago. Similar to codecademy, but more of a full project than individual lessons.

Learn git — A visual way to learn git, this helped me more than any other resource. It’s fast and pushed me to that “aha” moment.

Codeschool — A monster of a site. I’ve worked through about two thirds of it at this point. It’s a great place to learn JavaScript and the best for interactive tutorials on front-end concepts. I also enjoyed their Sass courses a lot.

Sketchcasts — I can’t stress enough the value in watching experienced designers work. Sign up for a few months and watch all of the content. Many of the concepts covered I’ve gone back to a few times as they become relevant to me on projects. Also, the tips are incredibly useful.

tuts+ — I often use tuts+ as a follow-up when I’ve learned the basics of a skill somewhere else. There are a good mix of design and dev tutorials and they add new ones regularly.

Lynda — Still the best place to learn new tools. Where I learned Photoshop. Also, they have some solid UX courses now too.

Udemy — Hmmm, not one of my favorite sites because the courses can range in quality so much. I recommend taking the courses when they are offered at a deep discount. The site seems to be down for me right now, but I enjoyed Rob Percival’s Sketch course and I found a couple of solid Affinity Designer courses as well. The dev courses I’ve taken haven’t impressed, so do your homework before purchasing one.

Team Treehouse — My favorite of all the resources for a couple of reasons. One is that they regularly add new content and re-organize their tracks. The second is that they have great instructors and a wonderful community when you’re stuck. Also, you can download any course as a video podcast and watch it elsewhere. I went through hours and hours on the treadmill on my iPad when I was training for a race last year! There are excellent dev and design courses, although I wish they had more on modern frameworks like Node, Angular, and React (it seems like they have a lot of new content in the pipeline). Just be warned that some of the challenges will require you to get help from the community.

Level Up Tuts — The best free resource I’ve found. Period. Scott is a great teacher and has gotten better over time. He has 1–3 hour courses on everything front-end related. If you are on a budget follow him! Either way, I would watch his courses before doing any paid content and support him along the way. Watch his tutorials on Sublime Text, Command Line, CSS/Sass, Angular, React, and especially all of his Sketch tutorials. Aside from UX practices and UI patterns he teaches everything you need to learn. I don’t have enough nice things to say — I’m amazed he puts everything up on YouTube.

Learn the hard way — Kind of a book, kind of a tutorial. This was a great way for learning the command line and for learning the basics of Regular Expressions. If you decide to learn Ruby or Python after JavaScript, I’m sure the materials here are excellent.

Watch Me Code — Watching other people work is a wonderful way to learn subtle nuances of a craft. This is a JavaScript focused site where you watch Derick using modern technology and doing testing. Part of why I enjoyed this site so much is that you actually learn testing and see professional, shipped code. I wouldn’t start out here, but when you feel like you’ve hit a wall this is a great place to learn.

Front-End Masters — I don’t exactly know how to classify this site, but I love it. There are some beginner and intermediate courses, but their advanced courses really shine. Many of the people who create the frameworks you use are the ones actually teaching the classes! This is the best place I’ve found for learning advanced JavaScript, frameworks, and methodologies. I spend time here currently when I want to learn something new.

Wes Bos — I’m not entirely sure where to classify all of Wes’ materials, but DAMN they are good. His book on Sublime Text is the best I’ve found by far, and his email tutorials on Flexbox and React are wonderful. Use his stuff to help learn. I also enjoy his teaching style.

Kopywriting Kourse — I haven’t included any other writing/content/copy materials as I think it’s a rabbit hole. Everyone should take Neville’s course. Understanding words, how they drive action, and marketing is important in life. We are all victims of this constantly on the web, you may as well understand the principles and how to put them to work.

Some I didn’t include: Pluralsight — Too many tutorials, not enough updates, not the best instructors in my opinion. I was overwhelmed on the site and some of the content was too old to be useful. Probably worth another look at some point though.

Train Simple — Adobe only training, I’ve found Lynda and Adobe’s own tutorials better. Also, check out Creative Live for specific Photoshop and Illustrator classes (I was in the audience for the recent Illustrator class!).

Evented Mind — I spent some time here learning Meteor, I generally found there to be better teachers and better content elsewhere. I prefer learning by doing rather than just watching.

Ray Wenderlich — If you dig further into iOS or Android programming you’ll come across the site. I haven’t worked through their materials, but have heard fantastic things. Some of the blog posts are tutorials in their own right and I’ve used a couple.

Scotch.io — During my journey I’ve used Scotch’s tutorials a number of times. Some are very helpful, some are less so. I particularly enjoyed their, REST, Angular, React, and Sublime Text tutorials. I think all of their content is free.

The Design of Everyday Things — Along your journey you’ll stumble across Don Norman. He’s a father of UX and a big influence for many in the field. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of his writing style. Feel free to read this book and hopefully you enjoy it more than I did. I know this is blasphemy to some, but I want to be honest in my reviews.

About Face — The seminal book on Interaction Design by Alan Cooper and others, which has been updated several times. I enjoyed it, but don’t think it’s a must read like the books I’ve listed above. If you want to dig further into interaction design and prototyping give it a look.

Processes:

I want to quickly highlight three important processes that have helped me along my journey.

Copying designs that you like off Dribbble or Behance. Actually downloading and recreating assets in Sketch is fun and useful. It’s a great way to learn color, typography, and layout. I recommend grabbing WhatFont chrome extension so you can see what other sites are using as type. Also…use this for learning what type is in an image.

Creating tiny projects to learn and test dev work. You have to make stuff! When you learn something new, think of a way to make something simple and test it out. It doesn’t need to be more than a few lines of code, but get in the habit of creating. This will anchor what you’ve learned, and you can refer back to it later. I save all of mine in Dropbox.

Practice code challenges. I like Codewars, they tend to be fun and have a good community.

Other Resources:

I realized as I finished that I hadn’t listed the other resources that I love and use regularly. Some of these are tools, some are blogs, some are newsletters. Rather than continuing with overwhelm, here are the best of the best in my opinion.

Codrops — I love their newsletter and site. It’s the best thing since sliced bread. Amazing tutorials, links, resources, and their CSS resource helped me when I was really struggling to understand pseudoclasses and the box model.

Luke W — Simply wonderful blog and newsletter. Luke’s writing and data-driven analysis are so useful.

Design+Code — I mentioned Meng To earlier, but his weeklyish newsletter is usually where I find out about new tools and tricks.

Sidebar — Sidebar is curated by the generous Sacha Greif who has created some useful things. It’s 5 design related links every day. A lot of my inspiration comes from these links.

Designer News — Stay current. I enjoy the newsletter even though it often overlaps with Sidebar.

InVision Blog — I don’t have enough nice things to say about what InVision is doing for the design community. The blog is great, the content is great, the guest authors are great. If I could only follow one blog, this would be it.

Dribbble and Behance — When you are learning, you need to find some great creatives to follow. Grabbing resources and mirroring better artists is a fantastic way to learn. Yes, these are focused on visual design and not usability or UX. But that’s okay. I should probably start posting things to dribbble to get feedback, but I’ve never looked for an invite before…

Universe or unicorn?

Below is exactly what I would recommend for someone looking to become a unicorn.

If I could turn back time…

Here is the path I’d follow if I started again today. If you have the luxury of taking an immersive course, I highly recommend it. Having classmates to bounce ideas off of and a career center to help you find a job, create a new resume, and portfolio is invaluable. Feel free to jump around if you already understand some of the topics presented.

Immersive Route:

Prep Work Don’t Make Me Think HTML/CSS Book

HTML/CSS Dash Codecademy Level Up Tuts — work through the html and css tutorials. Team Treehouse — Begin the web design track, this is the segue into UX.

UX Intro Elements of user experience Information Architecture Lynda — UX courses to learn the tools.

JavaScript Intro Eloquent JavaScript Codecademy — JS tutorials, skip jQuery for now. Team Treehouse — Begin the web developer track . Level Up Tuts — JS tutorials.

Visual Design Tools (Sketch & PS) Level Up Tuts — Sketch Tutorials. Design+Code — Work through the Sketch part. Sketchcasts — This will really help after you have the basics down. Udemy — The monster Rob Percival course. The Bitfountain Design Immersive — If you can still access this, otherwise work on the new Bitfountain. Lynda — Photoshop training, you can decide how deep to go here…I recommend Deke’s tutorials, but there are many good ones. Bezier Tool Game — A fun and incredibly useful way to learn the pen tool. You’ll thank me for spending some hours on this, it helped me finally get how the tool works.

Development Tools — At this point we are prepping for the advanced JS and Front-End concepts by learning tools developers use. Level Up Tuts — Sublime text tutorials Sublime Text by Wes Bos. Team Treehouse — If you haven’t completed the git/github courses or the console/terminal course go through these. Learn git Progit Codeschool — This is when I would switch from Treehouse to Codeschool. Take the git/github courses at Codeschool. Codecademy — Learn the command line. This will take a long time to master, but you will get good enough to begin using it. At this point I’d stop using finder for a month or two in order to practice. Learn the hard way — A good way to round out your command line learning.

JavaScript Advanced JavaScript Patterns TDD By Example Codeschool — Work through the JavaScript tutorials then any front-end frameworks you want to learn. I would also watch the CSS/Sass tutorials. Front-End Masters or Watch Me Code — I would pick one of these to start and then work into the other depending on whether you want to learn testing first, or dig deep into React/Angular and brush up on other skills.

Prototyping Tools This isn’t an area I would spend too much time on. I would download Marvel for your phone, and use InVision on the web. When you want to test deeper interactions, spend some time learning Framer. There are a lot of good Framer tutorials out there (check out Bitfountain, Front-End Masters, and Udemy). It’s the tool I’ve been learning recently and enjoying immensely. With the JavaScript skills you’ve developed it shouldn’t take long to pick up.

Immersive At this point you’re pretty good and have a solid foundation of knowledge to draw from. Decide whether you want to focus more on UX or on Front-End based on what you enjoyed learning more! You have years ahead. If you want to do UX, I’d recommend going to General Assembly. Their career counseling is great and you’ll meet a network of other designers. If you want to do Front-End, I’d recommend going to Hack Reactor. I debated between the two and ended up at GA. If I wanted to focus more on dev I would’ve gone to HR. I wanted to move to San Francisco and signed up for a course at GA while I was doing consulting work. Hack Reactor has an online program that you can take anywhere in the world. If you happen to be (or want to be) in the Boulder area, check out RefactorU.

Final Thoughts

This turned into a substantially longer post than I’d expected. I hope it helps people navigate through the huge number of learning options. I am sure people will have different opinions on how they like to learn or tools they found useful. Please leave them in the comments! I love self-guided learning and am always looking for new tutorials.

If you want some help based on where you are in your own learning journey I am happy to give specific recommendations as well. I spent many hours working down routes I don’t use much of anymore. The first six months I spent learning Ruby and Rails, and I’ve spent about as much time learning Meteor. I can post thoughts on learning these if people are interested. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!

I am a product designer based in San Francisco. I’m currently a UX consultant and looking for full-time work in a playful, education-driven company.

Please follow me on twitter where I focus on design, or follow my blog where I focus on living a meaningful life. Thanks!

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from Web Development & Designing http://www.designyourway.net/blog/design/the-making-of-a-unicorn/

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